Episodes
1. The Land of Fear (Tenere Desert, Niger)
50 min
Adams travels across the simmering heat of the Sahara with a Tuareg caravan, haggles for a pillar of salt and skis down the biggest sand dune in the world. This is the Land of Fear.
2. The Ancient Chariots of Libya (Libya)
50 min
Libya is Africa’s last great unknown. A vast desert country veiled from the West by fear, prejudice and misunderstanding. Once it was home to the richest cities in Africa. The headquarters for the African empires of Rome & Greece. Now it is reviled as “a desert with a dictator in it”. David Adams follows in the wheel tracks of Ancient Rome’s “chariots of fire” - the first wheeled vehicles to explore the Sahara - and discovers a little-known land of exotic brilliance, ancient cities & forbidding deserts.
3. Keepers of the Lost Ark (Ethiopia)
50 min
David heads high into the Ethiopian Cush - a place known to the ancients as Punt, The Land Of Ghosts - in search of The Lost Ark. The “lost” Ark of the Covenant is believed to be the most powerful object ever made by man. Its frightening power turned the Jews from Egyptian slaves into a powerful people of destiny. It destroyed whomsoever it touched. It razed cities to the ground. Then in 586BC it disappeared. It’s believed to have ended up in Ethiopia & that’s why David’s gone there. Not in search of the Ark itself - no mortal can look at it without being consumed by fire - but in search of those who look after it, the Keepers of the Lost Ark.
4. Swahili Sinbads (Zanzibar & Kenya)
50 min
The battered dhow carves its passage though the tourmaline waters of the South Indian Ocean. Its patched lateen sail fat with monsoon wind, the salt air fragrant with cloves. Barely heard at first, the faint cry of a muezzin crackles through the dawn’s early light. Heads turn to the horizon. The turbaned helmsman eases off the sailrope & utters just one magical word.... Zanzibar. Zanzibar. The Spice Island. A real world Shangri-la. The island at the end of the earth. David Adams sails south in search of the lost world of Arab seafarer.
5. The Mystery of the African Pharaohs (Sudan)
50 min
Sudan is one of the world’s last frontiers. It’s a mineral treasure trove (unmined gold, uranium, oil) hobbled by a brutal history. It’s Africa’s largest country - it stretches from Boston to Key West - yet virtually all of its 33 million inhabitants have no electricity, no telephones, and no postal service. It’s also the scene of one of the longest ongoing civil wars ever played out. Once though this vast desert land was the home of an advanced & mysterious civilisation. An ancient kingdom that was the glory of Africa. A kingdom that once ruled Egypt. A kingdom known as Kush. David Adams travels down the Nile from Lake Nasser to Khartoum in search of the mysterious kingdom of pyramid builders and sun worshippers on a journey into the land of the Black Pharaohs.
